Linux users! Why Linux?

[Granular]

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Fascinating. I found OpenBSD to be much less of a hassle than Debian.

For me it comes down mostly to more plentiful how-to's and easier troubleshooting. Most questions I've had regarding Debian/Ubuntu/Mint have been resolved by looking at the first Serverfault/Stack Overflow/Ask Ubuntu thread that came up in search results. Can't say the same about BSDs.

12 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

How does the non-copyleft, almost public domain BSD license deny you to do that?

If RouterOS was based on a non-copyleft kernel, RouterOS devs wouldn't have had to open source their patches to it, probably wouldn't have done so and I wouldn't have support for the router on any free-as-in-freedom OS.

[Dat Guy]

4 minutes ago, Granular said:

Can't say the same about BSDs.

According to my own experience, OpenBSD needs very little housekeeping. It just works. Can't say the same about Debian. ;-)

 

5 minutes ago, Granular said:

RouterOS devs wouldn't have had to open source their patches to it, probably wouldn't have done so

I respectfully disagree. This is pure speculation and there is no reason to assume that they wouldn't. Especially on routers, third-party firmware is very popular, so making it closed source would only drive your customers away. They know that.

 

The BSDs are under a BSD license as well. You can still patch them at will. Guess why?

[Granular]

30 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

According to my own experience, OpenBSD needs very little housekeeping. It just works. Can't say the same about Debian. ;-)

Housekeeping maybe. They do have their upsides for sure. In my experience FreeBSD handles running out of RAM much more gracefully than Linux, but things I remember distinctly giving me pause with FreeBSD have been Certbot and Docker warning me about FreeBSD support being experimental.

30 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

This is pure speculation and there is no reason to assume that they wouldn't.

They made the rest of their OS closed source. I don't see why they wouldn't close the kernel source if they could.

Quote

Especially on routers, third-party firmware is very popular, so making it closed source would only drive your customers away. They know that.

Eeeh... It's popular among tech enthusiasts, which are not a huge market. Clueless consumers don't care about 3rd party firmware and neither does the enterprise market, which is what MikroTik targets.

 

30 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

The BSDs are under a BSD license as well. You can still patch them at will. Guess why?

I know I can patch the kernel myself. It's just unlikely to end well due to my limited time and ability to program on that level or hire a competent dev.

[Rainbow Dash]

4 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

Which language would anyone need to use to be forced to downgrade to Linux?

Basically C++ compilers, the UNIX system and MacOS compilers.

[Dat Guy]

Are you aware of the fact that Windows has a native Clang? 

[wasab]

4 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

According to my own experience, OpenBSD needs very little housekeeping. It just works. Can't say the same about Debian. ;-)

 

I respectfully disagree. This is pure speculation and there is no reason to assume that they wouldn't. Especially on routers, third-party firmware is very popular, so making it closed source would only drive your customers away. They know that.

 

The BSDs are under a BSD license as well. You can still patch them at will. Guess why?

How when hardware support for bsd is so limited? 

[Dat Guy]

It is not. Every OS supports different hardware differently well. 

[wasab]

9 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

It is not. Every OS supports different hardware differently well. 

Good luck getting a WiFi card or printer working on bsd.

[Dat Guy]

Good luck getting an iPhone working on Linux. 

[Peskanova]

Well if vulkan(opengl) was the norm not direct x I will throw windows forever. 

I've only studied linux 1 year (cmd's and debian implementation) and there are so many things that windows doesnt allow you to have the control and I think that malware uses that to fuck users , they use windows crap against us . So many critial errors on recent windows updates , errors that microsoft itself tried to fix and fail  (telling my boss from microsoft repair service to format his laptop because an update was buged) 

And that's from a normal os prespective, try to compare mysql server with sql , just with the setup of a sql express vs a wamp/xamp or consoles + tools (or even latency and time up) its like all the money gathered from microsoft goes to marketing instead to listen and fix some stinky crap (and dont make me talk about visual studio problems with memory leakage and versions)

[Sauron]

Mostly because I can get it to do what I want it to do and almost nothing else. On a GNU/Linux system (aka not android) you have a lot more agency on your user experience than you do in windows or mac os; this can be daunting for new users but once you have a bit of experience it can be liberating. My linux setup looks (and acts) nothing like windows and the more I use it, the more I realize how much windows has been getting in my way. What I do, I can do faster and more efficiently on my linux machine (except play games of course).

 

I also generally agree with much of what the free software movement stands for and I like to live by that when I can (without going insane in the process).

 

Other than that there are a few more benefits including (potentially) better performance on old hardware, fewer concerns about malware, easy and (mostly) safe access to software packages through repositories (what windows and mac os offer isn't comparable), a better update system and more.

On 7/6/2018 at 3:22 AM, wasab said:

hack with it(looking at you Kali fans). 

In my experience 90% of Kali "users" have no idea what they're doing and only downloaded Kali because they thought it would magically make them l33t haxxors. Kali is for pentesters, not hackers, and it's just a tool of convenience - it does nothing you couldn't do on any other distribution, the only advantage it offers is that you don't need to install it or anything else to start doing your job on the field.

On 7/5/2018 at 7:33 PM, Giganthrax said:

I've been told Tails OS and some other Linux distros are a great way to stay anonymous on the internet.

While certainly any gnu/linux distribution will not track you anywhere near as much as windows would, when it comes to the internet it's mainly a matter of using your brain - beyond that any distribution can be configured for the highest anonimity possible, but they won't allow you to use the internet without any precautions and still be anonymous.

On 7/4/2018 at 10:05 AM, aakopa said:

It's not like thinkpads are any more reasonably priced than macbooks. Nicely specced T480s costs almost as much as macbook pro 13" with similar specs at least here in Finland.

Refurbished thinkpads are where it's at, dirt cheap and in great conditions because they are mostly used in the enterprise and thrown out for no other reason than company wide upgrades. New ones still offer quite a few advantages over macbooks that some people may find invaluable, but the line is definitely less clear.

On 7/4/2018 at 2:24 AM, emosun said:

i tried linux with an open mind but the community drove me away from trying it any further

As with many things in the world , it's the people that make it bad and not the thing itself.

I've never met a more hateful and terrible community than the resident "linux experts" who we are so fortunate to have graced in our presence. For we are mere peasants for doing literally the same things they do by clicking buttons instead of typing in a command line like it's 1979 all over again. How lucky we are to share a planet with such superior gods...

On one hand yes, there are elitists and they are a problem that hurts the community; on the other, if you go in with the mentality of "I won't touch the command line, just tell me where the button is" then you're asking for scorn. Linux users have a diy mentality and they are annoyed when they see someone who clearly isn't willing to make any effort to learn a new system. If you don't want to learn anything new and you just want to click a button to have the system automagically do something, linux isn't for you, and that's fine. The command line is an integral part of how a linux system is used and one of its main advantages is just how much you can get done with a few commands - refusing to use it is shooting yourself on the foot.

[emosun]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

On one hand yes, there are elitists and they are a problem that hurts the community; on the other, if you go in with the mentality of "I won't touch the command line, just tell me where the button is" then you're asking for scorn. Linux users have a diy mentality and they are annoyed when they see someone who clearly isn't willing to make any effort to learn a new system. If you don't want to learn anything new and you just want to click a button to have the system automagically do something, linux isn't for you, and that's fine. The command line is an integral part of how a linux system is used and one of its main advantages is just how much you can get done with a few commands - refusing to use it is shooting yourself on the foot.

Perfect example of what I was talking about.  I couldnt have written a response that sorta summed up exactly the kind of people you encounter. 

 

Again its a real turn off to an os that im sure would probably be great if the current user base didnt exist

[MEC-777]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Mostly because I can get it to do what I want it to do and almost nothing else. On a GNU/Linux system (aka not android) you have a lot more agency on your user experience than you do in windows or mac os; this can be daunting for new users but once you have a bit of experience it can be liberating. My linux setup looks (and acts) nothing like windows and the more I use it, the more I realize how much windows has been getting in my way. What I do, I can do faster and more efficiently on my linux machine (except play games of course).

 

I also generally agree with much of what the free software movement stands for and I like to live by that when I can (without going insane in the process).

 

Other than that there are a few more benefits including (potentially) better performance on old hardware, fewer concerns about malware, easy and (mostly) safe access to software packages through repositories (what windows and mac os offer isn't comparable), a better update system and more.

 

On one hand yes, there are elitists and they are a problem that hurts the community; on the other, if you go in with the mentality of "I won't touch the command line, just tell me where the button is" then you're asking for scorn. Linux users have a diy mentality and they are annoyed when they see someone who clearly isn't willing to make any effort to learn a new system. If you don't want to learn anything new and you just want to click a button to have the system automagically do something, linux isn't for you, and that's fine. The command line is an integral part of how a linux system is used and one of its main advantages is just how much you can get done with a few commands - refusing to use it is shooting yourself on the foot.

This. Couldn't have said it better.  

[MEC-777]

Been a Linux user for about 5 years now. I run it on all PCs in our house except my gaming rig, simply for compatibility. Even in the last 5 years, Linux has made massive strides and improvements. The reasons I use it as my primary OS? Simply read all the posts in this thread thus far, describing and explaining the many benefits and amazing things about it. 

 

Some of the reasons I love Linux:

-No BS, simple and efficient "under the hood". 

-Easy on system resources.

-The terminal. 

-Total control over your hardware and OS.

-Virtually no virus or malware threats (some exists, but extremely rare). 

-Easier to backup/restore/fix. 

-Easier and faster to install.

-Does not get in your way.

-Make it how YOU want it to be.

-Can teach you how PC hardware works on a deeper level.

 

I could go on...  

 

IMO, the primary reason it has not caught on more is because, in general, people do not like change and don't want to bother learning something new, even if it's similar to what they already know and might even be better than what they currently know. They know Windows/MacOS and they know "it works" for them. So why bother making the change? In hind-sight, I am SO GLAD I switched to Linux and it just keeps getting better. 

[NilNail]

The reason I use linux is I just i like desktop environments I love gnome and the activities button as well as workspaces and multitasking is easy as pie what i dont like about windows is you cant see all your windows with one click so they tend to add up. before I switched to linux my friends would take a minute strait trying to close everything. I also find windows is a lot more unstable like how could an os built and maintained by thousands of people crash much more than one maintained by a hundred or so windows stop working much more than on linux so I had to have a task manager open at all times and honestly to the people who don't know how to code I know how it feels but using the repositories of the os can get you almost all you need and you can download from the internet al well I have not ONCE opened up terminal and the linux experience is still amazing. windows also guzzles gigs of ram while my current linux uses 0.7 and mine easily tells you how much its using while windows does not the only downsides that i can see is hardware compatibility wich is not linux's fault some companies make sure you can't use linux on some pcs and sofware compatibility but you can run a virtual machine or download wine

[jde3]

On 7/10/2018 at 7:02 AM, Granular said:

Housekeeping maybe. They do have their upsides for sure. In my experience FreeBSD handles running out of RAM much more gracefully than Linux, but things I remember distinctly giving me pause with FreeBSD have been Certbot and Docker warning me about FreeBSD support being experimental.

They made the rest of their OS closed source. I don't see why they wouldn't close the kernel source if they could.

Eeeh... It's popular among tech enthusiasts, which are not a huge market. Clueless consumers don't care about 3rd party firmware and neither does the enterprise market, which is what MikroTik targets.

 

I know I can patch the kernel myself. It's just unlikely to end well due to my limited time and ability to program on that level or hire a competent dev.

The documentation for the BSD's are great. The difference between searching Linux and reading FreeBSD's documentation is that FreeBSD's doc's always apply to it and they are current. That may not be the case for any such random Linux post you find. (And yes, it's better than Arch's wiki.. all too often Arch's wiki will say "install this package from the AUR to fix this" and that isn't documentation)

 

OpenBSD is a really good OS, it is top quality but there are issues running it in production because sometimes (for usually good reason within their focus on security) they will rip out parts of the OS or make major changes. This makes it difficult to maintain and manage in production but it does make a good firewall, VPN server or front end server. It's important that OpenBSD shows us that these changes can be made so they need to keep doing this type of thing.. but it makes it rough on sysadmins.

 

As for FreeBSD your doing it wrong. Instead of Certbot use dehydrated and instead of Docker use jails. True there is no plug and play catalogue for FreeBSD jails.. at least yet.. A cool project would be though to have a recipe for one that just builds the container out of ports, so you get the sources from FreeBSD not some random docker dude. Just an idea.

[EPENEX]

It's faster, looks nicer, sometimes easier (like downloading files from a repository and upgrading them all at once), can give me something to do when something breaks or doesn't work correctly. GNU/Linux is the main reason I stopped gaming, because I found that messing around with it was more fun and rewarding. It's also generally more stable than Windows, I haven't had it break on me as often as Windows. Also, updating doesn't take 2 hours where I can't use my computer (happened yesterday so I removed Windows from my x220 in response). It's just overall a more rewarding OS to use and you learn a lot.

[wasab]

On 7/11/2018 at 3:54 AM, Dat Guy said:

Good luck getting an iPhone working on Linux. 

Good luck getting iPhone working in anything other than macos

[wasab]

On 7/14/2018 at 5:45 PM, EPENEX said:

It's faster, looks nicer, sometimes easier (like downloading files from a repository and upgrading them all at once), can give me something to do when something breaks or doesn't work correctly. GNU/Linux is the main reason I stopped gaming, because I found that messing around with it was more fun and rewarding. It's also generally more stable than Windows, I haven't had it break on me as often as Windows. Also, updating doesn't take 2 hours where I can't use my computer (happened yesterday so I removed Windows from my x220 in response). It's just overall a more rewarding OS to use and you learn a lot.

You need steam and playonlinux on there. You will be surprised at how many AAA games that have Linux version is can be run through WINE.

[EPENEX]

12 hours ago, wasab said:

You need steam and playonlinux on there. You will be surprised at how many AAA games that have Linux version is can be run through WINE.

I didn't stop gaming because I couldn't figure out how to run my games, I just found that messing around with different distros was more interesting and a better use of time.

[q54528]

Simple , light , fast , ez2use , Free !

[q54528]

U can do everything to linux by your own command .

Windows  do so much things to your computer but you even don`t know

 

[wasab]

15 hours ago, q54528 said:

Simple , light , fast , ez2use , Free !

It is also a status symbol. No, I don't mean those jerk Linux elitists who thinks they are computer gods just cuz they have Slackware, Arch, or Gentoo running on their machines.

 

I mean you can actually theme your desktop darkish, install a terminal application like Hollywood, and scare everyone around you into thinking you are a top notch world class computer hacker. 

 

[lievsim]

I switched from Windows to Linux for about 3 years now. As it was already said, the package manager is awesome. It's the best way to keep your software updated and to install new ones very quickly and for free ! I also enjoy the personnalisation that the os offers. Open-source software are designed to be modular and almost everything can be tweaked by adding a plug-in, an extension or what so ever. Other points were also mentioned: security, privacy, performance. I'm sorry to hear that people doesn't like the Linux community. I guess there is bitchy people everywhere. Don't be afraid of the console. You can do everything in GUI if you want, the same way that you would do on Windows but it should be noted that Linux terminal is really powerful and it gives you like superpowers ! I'll conclude with negative points: will you have driver issues ? Your hardware should work out of the box but as it is mostly generic drivers, the performance could be an issue (battery life and loudspeaker in my case). Is there softwares for Windows only ? Yes, shame on them. But there is probably a better alternative open-source. Hope I gave you my points. There is no such best operating system ever. It's all about your needs and your feeling. Bests, Simon.

[Aderm]

I use Linux for freedom and privacy.

It's also SO much faster than windows, especially using i3-gaps.

 

I currently use Solus and I love it. I use abound 200MB of ram when I login.

 

Windows is bloat and spyware.